


Radiance

by amiraculousladybug



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Canon Divergence, F/M, Lots of kissing, Some slight spoilers, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-15
Updated: 2016-03-15
Packaged: 2018-05-26 22:05:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,654
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6257662
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amiraculousladybug/pseuds/amiraculousladybug
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Adrien told her that she has his mother's smile, but what did he mean by that? Ladybug is determined to find out.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Radiance

**Author's Note:**

> You know, I think this is actually the first thing I've ever written for the Ladrien side of the love square.

_“You have her smile,”_ Adrien had said.

But was that a good thing or a bad thing? Marinette had spent the past half hour pacing back and forth across her room, and she was still no closer to deciding if reminding Adrien of his mother was a good thing or not. There was a saying that boys would end up liking women who were like their mother, but at the same time, there was always the off chance that he viewed Ladybug the way he would view a maternal figure (which was both flattering and disturbing at the same time, and Marinette very much hoped it wasn't the case). “What do you think, Tikki?” she asked her kwami finally, defeated.

“I think you're overthinking this,” Tikki replied from her perch on Marinette's desk. “It was just a compliment.” She nibbled on a cookie as if to say she was done discussing the matter.

“But he said I have his mother's smile! That's _got_ to mean something, doesn't it?” Marinette pressed. Maybe Tikki was right and she was overthinking this. But somehow she doubted it.

“Marinette, relax,” Tikki said, waving her cookie at her imperiously. “Don't worry about it. It's a compliment no matter what he meant.”

Marinette pouted in response and flopped down into her desk chair. Easy for Tikki to say not to worry about it. She wasn't the one with a monster-sized crush on Adrien Agreste. If Tikki had been in Marinette's shoes, maybe she wouldn't be so quick to dismiss Adrien's statement. After all, it wasn't every day you reminded your crush of his mother.

If only there was some way to just _ask_ Adrien what he had meant …

Marinette jerked upright in her seat. That was it! God, she was being an idiot. She could just transform into Ladybug and go over to his house and ask him. She had an excuse. His father had been attacked by Jackady today, after all; all she had to do was say she was checking up on him to make sure he was all right. “Tikki, spots on!”

She saw Tikki's mouth pop open in surprise, probably to ask what she was doing, but before the kwami could say a word, she was already being sucked into Marinette's Miraculous. As soon as Ladybug's spotted mask was across Marinette's face, she went out onto the terrace and swung across the streets towards Adrien's house.

Months of learning about Adrien (read: stalking him) paired with her visit to the mansion during Jackady's attack meant that it only took Ladybug a couple of minutes to find his room from the outside of the building. She gave a tiny fist pump of triumph when her second guess proved to be the correct window. Through the panels of glass, she could see Adrien at his computer, his face illuminated by the screen in the otherwise dark room—probably doing some of the mountain of homework they'd been assigned. She took a deep breath and then tapped at the window.

Adrien jumped a little out of his chair and whirled to face the window. His expression went from confusion and surprise to perplexed excitement. Ladybug offered him a wave through the glass, and he leapt to his feet. He gestured for her to go over towards his bathroom, and she realized the rest of the windows must not be able to open. She did as he instructed, and a minute later he was pushing the bathroom window open to let her in.

“Ladybug,” he said, still looking pleasantly baffled. “What are you doing here?”

“I came to check up on you,” she replied. This wasn't so bad. She could talk to him just fine, as long as she stuck to the script she'd composed in her mind on the way here. “Since your father was targeted by Jackady earlier today and there were a lot of security risks.” She looked away sheepishly, gesturing around herself at the bathroom. “Not to mention that I shoved you in here and shut you in while the attack was going on and then didn't bother to make sure you were okay afterwards.”

“Oh.” He looked … pleased? Disappointed? She wasn't sure which. His expression kept flickering from one emotion to the other. He rubbed at the back of his neck as if embarrassed. “I'm fine. I wasn't hurt or anything, so …”

“That's good.”

“Yeah …” For a minute, the two of them just stood there in awkward silence, fidgeting and shifting their weight, and then Adrien moved in the direction of his room. “Do you … want to … come in? Sit down? For a while? Maybe?” He couldn't seem to get the words out of his mouth fast enough, tripping over himself in his attempt at hospitality. It was adorable.

Ladybug had to give herself a little shake to remind herself that Adrien had just asked her a question, and that he was expecting an answer. She couldn't sit here and mentally fawn over him forever. “Oh, um … that would … that would be great. I … had a question I wanted to ask you anyway.”

“What's that?” Adrien moved out of the bathroom and into his bedroom, Ladybug following behind, and pulled his desk chair over beside his bed so they could both sit down.

Oh, God. Adrien's bed. He was sitting on his _bed_. The sheets were neat, properly tucked in, although the pillow was a little crumpled from use. A little decorative pillow sat up beside the other, its spotted pattern easy to see even in the dim light. Of course he would be the type to make his bed, she thought, of course he would keep it immaculately tidy like the rest of his room, and her mind began to drift, imagining what it might look like in the morning before he made it, what it might look like when Adrien was under the covers asleep, or when he first woke up—she shook her head to clear it. No, she had to keep her mind on the conversation at hand. She didn't want to end up a stammering mess because she'd been fantasizing about what Adrien's sleeping face might look like. That would just be _humiliating_. “Earlier … when I was here … I saw that picture of your mother, and you said … that I have her smile.”

Adrien looked at her with an unreadable expression. “Yeah …?”

Maybe this had been a bad idea, she realized. This was a stupid question to be asking him. But it was too late to go back now. “I was wondering what you meant by that.”

Adrien went very still and very, very quiet.

This had definitely been a bad idea, Ladybug decided. His unreadable expression had shifted now into discomfort. “You don't have to answer if you don't want to,” she assured him. When he remained silent, she moved to stand. “Maybe I should go.”

His hand shot out to grab her wrist. “No, it's—you can stay. I don't mind.”

Ladybug looked down at him. It was hard to say for certain, given the poor lighting, but she could have sworn he was blushing. “Are you sure?”

Adrien nodded, his eyes determinedly focused on a spot on the floor.

Slowly, Ladybug sat back down, and Adrien unclasped his hand from around her wrist.

“I meant,” he said, his face flushing further, “your smile reminds me of my mother's.”

When he didn't elaborate, Ladybug slumped a little in her seat. Maybe she _had_ been overthinking things, and it meant nothing. “I was hoping for something a little more explanatory,” she mumbled, more to herself than to him. She didn't want to come across as nagging.

“Huh?” Adrien gave her a puzzled look.

Now it was Ladybug's turn to blush. “Nothing. Never mind.”

“Okay.” He fell quiet again, and the two of them sank into another awkward silence. This really had been a terrible idea, Ladybug thought.

Adrien was first to break the silence. “My father, he … fell in love with my mother's smile. She used to tell the story all the time.” His lips curved up in the ghost of his own smile. “Father always got embarrassed when she would talk about it. They met when she was supposed to model some of his designs for his finals in college. And she used to say that when she smiled and said hello to him that first time, he couldn't seem to stop staring at her. He stared so hard that she wondered if there was something on her face.” He laughed softly. “Not that I can blame him. In that position, I probably would have done the same thing. I—Mother had the most beautiful smile. It was so kind, and she put all of herself into it. She always meant it when she smiled. She was always genuine.”

Ladybug felt a lump begin to form in her throat. Was that what he saw when _she_ smiled …?

“Father admitted once that he thought Mother looked radiant when she smiled,” Adrien continued. “Not that he'll ever admit to admitting it. But, um … your smile, it … to me, it's just as beautiful as my mother's.” His face was definitely red now, all the way from his neck to the tips of his ears. He pulled the collar of his jacket across his cheeks as if that could conceal his blush. “As beautiful as my mother's was to my father, I mean.”

Ladybug bit her lip. That was high praise, even coming from Adrien. And then the implication behind his last statement hit her, and her face came close to matching the color of her mask. “Wait, you … do you mean what I …” The power of coherent speech left her, and she was stuck gaping at him like a fish out of water.

Adrien buried his face further behind his jacket collar. “Maybe,” he said in a voice that was barely audible.

She reached out and, as if being controlled by some force beyond herself, pulled his collar away from his face. He looked at her with a mix of embarrassment and perplexion, still red-cheeked. “You like me?” she managed to ask in a whisper.

His eyes focused on everything in the room except for her. “I don't know if like is a strong enough word for how I feel, Ladybug.”

That was the final blow for her pounding heart. All the breath left her body in a rush, her mouth falling open. Adrien liked her. No, he'd just said that wasn't the word for it. Adrien loved her. He _loved_ her. If this was a dream, she never wanted to wake up. Adrien Agreste, the boy she was in love with, _loved her back_.

Adrien seemed to take her silence as a bad sign, because he wilted at her lack of response. “I'm sorry,” he mumbled. “I said too much.”

“No,” she insisted hastily, and he gave her a baffled but hopeful stare. “No,” she repeated, more firmly, “you said just enough.” And, on giddy impulse more than anything else, she leaned forward and kissed him.

Adrien's first response was a startled, wordless exclamation that was cut off by Ladybug's lips on his. Then, as he registered what was happening, he started to kiss her back, shy at first and then with growing confidence. His lips were pleasantly soft and their touch reverent. There was care, such tremendous care in his every movement, and it made her want _more_. She shifted so that there was less space between them, less of a gap between their bodies. Adrien made another startled sound deep in his throat and then pulled her down onto the bed with him.

Good God, she hoped this wasn't a dream. Adrien's lips were still on hers, his hands burning as they clasped around her waist, and he was kissing her harder now as if he thought she might disappear if he stopped. She wound her fingers up into his golden hair and wished she could have felt its softness through the material of her supersuit. She'd have gladly dropped her transformation right then if it wouldn't have compromised her identity to do so. But it was Ladybug, not Marinette, that Adrien wanted, and so it was Ladybug she would give him. Adrien chose that moment to nip at her bottom lip; she gasped in surprise and he took the opportunity to deepen the kiss, parting her lips with his own. The gentle shyness he'd started with was gone now. Instead, there was a tangible, desperate, greedy hunger that only seemed to increase the more he kissed her. It was so unlike the normal sweet Adrien that it almost scared her, and yet she couldn't seem to get enough of it. She moved her hands down to fist in his shirt, tugging him closer until the remaining space between them was gone, still kissing him wildly. Adrien's response was to wind his legs around hers and clutch his hands tighter at her waist.

Ladybug knew she ought to stop this before they got far too carried away, but the thought was a dim one. She couldn't quite bring herself to care when Adrien was kissing her like she was his entire universe. Warmth surged and pooled inside of her as his hands slid up the curves of her body in a way that, had she been in normal civilian clothes, would have rucked her shirt up around her rib cage. A quiet moan bubbled up from her throat. Any lingering thoughts of stopping were driven clear from her mind. Their kisses were deep enough now that she could taste him, could taste the sharp chill of mint and a faint trace of something sweet. She wrapped her arms around him and let him kiss her harder, burning the experience into her memory.

Abruptly, Adrien pulled away, and she looked at him in dazed confusion. He looked just as out of it as she felt, his lips swollen and his face flushed, and it struck her with sudden clarity that _she_ was the reason for his current lovestruck state. “God, I love you,” he murmured, and then he was kissing her again, even deeper this time. She tightened her hold on him and rolled so that he was on top of her.

They were still kissing when there was a rap at the bedroom door. “Adrien?” a woman's voice called through the door.

Adrien jerked out of their kiss with a curse and moved to yank the bedsheets over both of them, scooting and squirming until his head was up on his pillow. He gestured for Ladybug to stay as close to him as possible. She flattened herself against him obediently, buried beneath the covers. The door opened mere seconds later.

“What is it, Nathalie?” Adrien asked whoever had come in. Ladybug hardly dared to breathe for fear of being caught. “It's late.” He faked a yawn.

“Your father thought he heard a strange noise coming from your room and asked me to check on you,” the woman's voice replied. “I apologize if I disturbed you.”

“It's fine,” Adrien replied. A moment later, the door clicked shut, and he heaved a sigh of relief. “She's gone,” he whispered to Ladybug, lifting the sheets. “I'm sorry about that.”

She sat up with an embarrassed smile. “It's okay. I should … um … probably be going anyway.”

His eyes widened. “Oh, right. Right. You probably should.” He fidgeted, looking flustered, as she moved towards the window she had come in by. “Um, will I … see you again …?”

The rational part of her mind was screaming no, that she shouldn't do this again, that she was making a huge mistake, but the rest of her was still too high on kissing him to care what reason said. She gave him a playful wink. “Keep your window open for me, and you will,” she promised.

 

**Author's Note:**

> I am actually sorely tempted to continue this, but I'm not sure if I should. Your opinions would be greatly appreciated.


End file.
